56 SOCIAL SCIENTIST the reader from the standpoint of his consciousness, i.e., the writer wants the reader to become an active participant rather than remain a passive consumer of art. Just as the writer transforms himself into a conscious active agent at the level of production, it now becomes possible for the reader to undergo a similar process of becoming at the level of consumption. Thus the reader's response to the novel becomes the other factor in determining the political character of the novel. It is quite possible that the writer's aim is not matched by the reader's response, but even then the political novel assumes the status of a medium through which a dialogue is conducted, the possibility of an equal exchange between the producer and the consumer, albeit theoretically, is accepted, the idea of a joint venture is propogated. Thus whether or not the political novelist formulates a programme of action in his novel or locates the action of the novel on the plane of a real political conflict, he aims At portraying reality as a social process. The novelist's understanding of the dynamics of social process may however be partial. He may not be able to transcend the a priori structural limits that are conferred by affiliation to a particular class, thereby becoming incapable of apprehending external reality in concrete terms. The ideological closure of the writer, the source of all mystification on his part, can then be understood as a strategy of containment, whether intellectual or formal. Middle Class Origins For any worthwhile discussion on modern Bengali literature, there is one fact that can not be ignored : this literature is produced and consumed primarily by the middle class. All writers, no matter what their political convictions are, are bound by this structural constraint. The market conditions in fact help to define the context in which the cultural texts are to be examined. During the British Rule the English-educated Bengalees constituted the intermediary class, the class that was intended to act as interpreters between the ruling whites and the vast majority of the so called uneducated people. This social group enjoyed an importance far in excess of its size. The nineteenth century Bengali intellegentsia "diligently cultivated the self-image of a middle class, below the Zaminders but above the toilers. It searched for its model in the European middle-class, which as it learned through western education, had brought about the great transformation from medieval to modern times through movements like the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and democratic revolution or reform.'2 However one vital difference between the European and the Bengali middle-class, essentially falsified all attempts on the part of the latter to reproduce this chain of events in the Indian context. The Bengali middle class, as contrasted with its English counterpart, was not only completely alienated from the means of production, the same means were